Police Intensify Hunt for Suspect in ‘Acid’ Attacks on 2 People, 100 Cars

Authorities have stepped up their search for a man believed responsible for acid-splattering attacks on more than 100 cars and at least two people since March, Los Angeles police said Wednesday.

In the most serious attack, a 9-year-old girl was struck in the face by a caustic liquid that she said was sprayed from a passing van as she waited to cross a Canoga Park street near her home on March 17. Her injuries were not severe.

About a month later, a 62-year-old Northridge woman reported that she was driving along Nordhoff Street in Northridge when a motorist pulled alongside and hurled a liquid onto her face and shoulder, causing minor burns.

The assaults are believed part of a rampage that has caused $50 to $500 damage to each of the 100 vehicles in an area from Northridge to Calabasas, police detectives said. Most incidents, involving a substance that police describe as acid, although it has yet to be identified, have been reported in the last three weeks.

Detectives suspect that one man, driving a tan or dirty-white American-made van, is responsible for the attacks, Lt. Rick Violano said.

“We have a suspect who’s spraying, either with a squirt gun or fire extinguisher, acid onto the paint jobs of vehicles,” Violano said. “It’s occurring 24 hours a day, but for the most part between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.”

Police said they took one suspect into custody Wednesday but that he was later released. While the man was being questioned, three more cars were sprayed, including two in a parking lot at the corner of Nordhoff Street and De Soto Avenue in Chatsworth, police said.

The assailant is believed to be white, in his mid-20s, with blond or light-brown hair. He usually sprays the acid from the windows of the van. His most frequent targets have been cars parked in bowling alley or shopping center lots, Violano said.

The liquid is a caustic material that eats through or discolors paint and causes skin burns, but police have been unable to identify the substance. “By the time it’s reported to us, the stuff has dried,” Violano said.

A 30-year-old man, whose car was squirted as he pulled into a Chatsworth alley, is one of the few who have witnessed attacks on their vehicles, police said. The man reported that a van approached from the opposite direction, and its driver, half smiling, sprayed a liquid on his car with a squirt gun.

Beverly Monti, the Northridge woman who was sprayed in the face and shoulders, said she had no warning of the assault. She suddenly felt the liquid hit her face and immediately pulled into a service station and splashed water on her skin.

“I was burning something terrible, but I have no scars, thank God,” Monti said.